Archive for the ‘Process Improvement’ Category

UPDATE: “Where did you go… while I was away..?”

I bet you were still looking for answers – to issues that probably affect all of us.

The constant change that we all experience

– requires that we constantly change – the way we manage change.

That is the profound simplicity of life – for each of us and all of us.

How we do that is then the holy grail of success, individually and collectively – and cooperatively.

But enough about me, what about you – will you agree to cooperate? Maybe, if there is also something in it for you as well (WIFM), a mutual benefit. So that – (WIFM/mutual benefit) is the underlying foundation to the value stack – and the reason why nothing stacks up – at least very well or for very long. Even our shared intentions to do good seldom result in mutual benefits. Most often that is “because” we overlooked some stakeholder or failed to anticipate some unintended consequence. That “hidden” insight is what I was looking for when I found “ASK4” – a core set of questions to take things apart and reconstruct them in a sustainable configuration.

Ironically, even with the entire blogosphere at my doorstep, I have been unable to express that in such a way that a tipping point cold be reached, and the energy of a k-zillion minds could be beckoned and applied to use our common sense to solve our common issues and enjoy that mutually beneficial result.

That turns out to have forced a pivot – a slight CHANGE from just proposing the potential value of such an “ASK4” approach – to actually putting that approach into action and solving a familiar problem. I was forced to face the reality that if this process is viable it must also become visible to become valuable. I realized that if it was a means to enable innovation, it must be applied to create an innovation. Proof-of-concept always stacks up higher in the value pyramid than than does mere conjecture. I needed an artifact that in fact ASK4 can work

So I have been offline from this blog posting for some time. Instead I have applied the ASK4 process to create an innovation – and as of my recent birthday the fee has been paid for an approved patent on the ConstruKs.com erosion and flood control technology.

The ASK4 process works – and my goal now is to put a lot of folks back to work: making a variety of ConstruKs product versions, that can solve a host of infrastructure problems and introduce an economic development opportunity in those same communities. I’d like to modestly call that integrated approach “Economic Recovery In A Box”.

Turns out that people already know how to “stack dirt” to build topographical features for landscaping and roadways and bridge abutments and building foundations, and even for buildings themselves (like adobe/compressed-earth structures). Turns out that people have stacked rocks for keeping landslides from taking the hillsides away and along streams to keep from losing precious landscapes. Turns out that people have used these natural resource materials to create jetties, bulkheads, and seawalls to prevent beaches and lakeside boundaries from changing or endangering lives and property. Turns out that if you place those ballast materials (ex:dirt) inside an interlocked protective material it will stay put and resist the forces of nature – from gravity to floods to wind to ocean currents. It also turns out that many of these issues from mountainside to seashore share a common problem – water.

The problem of flooding (water) that I chose to address as an ASK4 case study is widespread and worth considering – again. The long-standing answer seems to be dirt-simple, sandbags.

Turns out that sandbags aren’t very “long-standing”. That approach takes a source of sand – moved to a staging area – placed into bags – that are hauled to site – carried to the streamside – placed into stacks – and when they have served their purpose, picked up again – carried to a vehicle – hauled away – and a hole dug into which they are disposed – dirt-simple (_n_o_t_). Labor-intensive – yes.

As it turns out, water is an alternative soultion.

Once you investigate an isssue it is likely that the answer is right in front of your eyes – or at least can become more easily visible (using ASK4) . The problem with flooding is water – the problem with flood water is that it is not useful – the reason that it is not useful is that it can’t be stacked (to create a flood barrier) – the reason it can’t be stacked is for lack of a viable container. The root cause of this whole stack of issues is again dirt-simple – create a stacking container system that can hold water. Using a membrane liner in ConstruKs units, water from a flooding tributary/rising ocean can be placed into the standing diamond columns that are laced together to form one interlocked boundary unit that could stretch from North Dakota to New Orleans. When the challenge has abated, the water ballast can be easily returned and the stacking units (which can be made to easily collapsed) stored for future use – efficient/effective/economical. And if desired, they can be filled (once) with the same familiar sand (or even concrete) to become a permanent construction – that resists erosion and may be adequate for the next inclimate season.

Using ASK4 as a proces to address any issue can create viable solutions – as it just did for me. That simple ConstruKs solution may serve you or your community some day. It may provide employment, it may keep a landslide from taking out a highway, it may keep the levee from failing or the river from flooding your property. It may keep the rising ocean from taking away a beach or an entire community.

Before that can happen, I am now faced with some new issues of manufacturing and marketing that this ConstruKs innovation opportunity has introduced. That is where this discussion began:

“The constant change that we all experience

– requires that we constantly change – the way we manage change”.

During the time it has taken to invent and patent the ConstruKs idea, others have launched a whole new online means of crowd-funding such ventures by enrolling the power of a multitude of smaller supporters (rather than a single affluent venture-capitalist). I now have an option to place my innovation idea atop the enabling financial benefits of another useful idea (crowdfunding). Together that could stack up better for each of us and all of us. I can now offer rewards to those that want to help “stack water to stop a flood” – and jump-start their local economy.

Perhaps by addressing the ‘flooding’ case-study example we now have a suitable innovation artifact that exemplifies how we can change the way we manage change (ex:flooding). Perhaps those with programming skill and change managent insight can now see the value of joining forces to place ASK4 online. Perhaps we may all get to cooperate in the ASK4 process to solve countless other issues with our common sense – across these U-Netted Nations.

We’ll see how this all stacks up – and soon I hope !

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Could be. That would be what we would all like to happen each time we made a decision. It would be nice to be done with it – that little extra weight gain, that little financial loss, that persistent patch of weeds in our lawn, or that inconsistent politician that claimed to be a statesman. If only that was the last time we had to deal with them we could get on with business and then hurry off on our vacation….. STOP !!

You overlooked something and there is an emergency meeting that your boss (or wife or Congress) just called to sort out why it didn’t work as you intended. That is not just the problem – it is also the solution. But in our stressed minds and fault-finding attitudes we often overlook that the “media is the message”. If you get it, stop. If not I’ll explain.

“You overlooked something and there is an emergency meeting and you now need to sort it out to see why it didn’t work as you intended”. That’s all. And that is the message and the process and the answer. All you need are the right questions – to get to that answer. With the right questions you can get past the blame-game and win the real prize. You can get past the guesswork and get to the real work. You can get off your “But” of reluctance and past the restraints of “Because” and onto the critical path that is hidden just behind the “overgrowth” of root cause (like those weeds that keep showing up in our lawn).

So what’s the best question? (that one of course). “Because” until we ask the right questions the real issue will remain just out of sight – hidden in the details – that are only known by someone that we overlooked because they aren’t in charge, they are just impacted (again).

“But” we had such good intentions(?). Good. “But” that is not good enough – for you or for me or for us – and somehow (“Because” of you) we are now all in this together..

and that’s life.

The challenge (and opportunity), which is ongoing, is to manage the results of our latest decision. So the only way we can do that is to use an approach that takes what we know (or should have learned), compares that to where we want(ed) to go instead, determines why we are where we are instead of where we want(ed) to be, and how we can get there (instead). That process now becomes our “life” and makes our life better – and better -and better.

I don’t have to convince you to do that. You and I (and everyone else) want something better. Unless we are completely selfish we also want that for others so long as our portion is still equitable. We want to be equitably rewarded according to our effort (not according to the entitlement schedule imposed by some imposing authority that re-distributes what we should have received). Absent that equitable system we resort to getting ours first – making the result of our last decision worse and worse and worse – for everyone.

The result of that (selfish) approach starts to look a lot like the outcomes of the United Nations – well intentioned and overgrown with inequality. It starts to look like the failed corporations whose leaders took a disproportionate share of our efforts. It starts to look like politics, overgrown with special favors – taken from our taxes and then redistributed (under the guise of “equal” rights) to others who voted to support that “selfish” system. It starts to look like the broken families where love was not understood, or shared, or received. It starts to look a lot like our job, our government, our world. It all starts to look too familiar.

And that’s LIFE… unless we change something…

We (each) must change the way we continuously change our minds – about the results of our latest decision. We (all) must change the way we continuously manage the ongoing change that can make our lives better and better – by cooperatively managing the results of OUR latest decisions.

How can we do that ? – I thought you’d never ASK…

“You overlooked something and now you need to step back ONLY one decision

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is aparticipant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Six words that should strike fear in anyone within earshot are “Hold my beer and watch this..”. That fear would be compounded if the person so inclined is also getting behind the wheel and headed out into traffic. …….. DANGER !!

It’s not hard to imagine doing that on the information highways of the internet. We have now all witnessed how “funny” it is to watch as YouTube displays the latest idea of good humor (or bad taste) or even well intentioned serious effort.

Like so many addicts, we are prone to the intoxicating euphoria of this newfound freedom, to be able to get behind the wheel of a new vehicle for cruising main-stream thought-lines, a new way of “being seen” as being smart (…?).

We are now able to do and then be seen doing virtually anything, everywhere. You might think that with all that collective intellect we could have devised some collective intelligence – some common sense by which to actually solve common problems – or at least avoid uncommon stupidity – in plain sight of virtually everyone.

That is now the online intersection where we find ourselves – looking at the traffic jams of information gridlock – lacking a traffic circle approach to keep moving forward while merging with fellow travelers. Never mind the tow trucks hauling away those whose internet startup stalled out, those whose path forward resulted in a rear-end collision with a slow-moving funding vehicle, or those who have been pulled over for a belching exhaust of offensive content or asked to walk the straight line of an IP sobriety test. There is even an occasional stolen car when some spammer hijacks the privileges of others, or when some self-approved internet guru takes some unsuspecting subscribers hostage and along for a meandering joy-ride, only to be chased down later by higher authorities.

As we now mature (online) we can and must move beyond the adolescence that fuels our need to be seen and heard – of just “finding ourselves” or showing off (as if someone else really cared). It is time to change the rules of the road, individually and collectively. The road trip is over and we need to learn to come home to some sanity. Or if we really plan on going somewhere, we need to “know before we go”.

These new virtual highways are useful, they just need some “infrastructure” planning. They can be just a corridor for an endless array of roadside signs – beckoning us to choose this content and that offer, even a free sample here and there. They can offer us the well marked road to a suitable destination, or a mis-marked road that only leads to a dead end in the desert of good intentions – perhaps just another wasted effort to create yet another redundant initiative to reduce the carbon foot-print of our inefficiency, or to try (again) to find “world peace” – or other such mirage. Are we hopelessly lost and, making good time?.

When we decide how best to help those who pursue information to actually find viable pathways – then these corridors will afford us a pleasant journey and a safe arrival. We have to become responsibly interoperable, converging our opinions and merging into consensus around the traffic circles of influence and direction. We will need the decision-making features of a GPS to define our critical path. We each have to take responsibility for our personal journey – and the well being of others along the way. Need I even mention texting while driving..?

Maybe it is timely to consider a mental ignition lock that warns us before we are enabled to put ourselves in gear or others at risk – by publishing, promoting, and using the wrong information – that leads us toward the wrong conclusions.

Why do we need that – what would it look like – and how could it work for each of us individually – and for all of us collectively, globally?

Is there a 1-800-U-ASK4-IT phone number for getting the information highway current condition report that I need – when I need it – from those who are credible – and know the best route to my success? Has anyone seen the virtual bumper sticker on our mutual backsides suggesting that someone act responsibly and turn us in if we are seen to be driving to conclusions erratically – aggressively – dangerously? Where is the U-Netted Nations organization for Citizens Against Online Stupidity – and the real-world collisions and CAOS that those decisions create?

Is there actually a way to change the way we think (individually) so we (collectively) can manage the way we change – “virtually everything..” – 24/7/365 – in our new virtual world?

Maybe we can help each other along the road – and mutually share the benefits.

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

There are acronyms to describe the tools and systems that are used to survive in the world of business – including:

BI – collecting business needs

ERP – providing business solutions

CRM – managing customers/feedback

Every new parent knows what every business owner (and everyone else) should learn – that knowledge comes from the sudden awakening that the baby needs something – and right now.

The next question is WHAT. The baby is not able to communicate so the parent has to investigate the situation and determine the options that could bring relief – or satisfaction. The next question is HOW. The parent has to decide how to address the situation and provide the solution. With any luck (and just-in-time delivery) – the needs will be met and the parent can return to business-as-usual, LISTENING And READY for the next active call of duty.

Babies don’t even have to ‘know’ what they need to create the change in the system that can force parents to listen, respond, learn (repeatedly). Somewhere along that critical path toward mutual success they come to a sustainable approach – the viable convergence of needs, and solutions, and feedback. Parents know that the baby must be fed – and then we also must eventually “burp ’em” . That final result serves as a feedback loop – assuring that the formulation was well placed – and well received (borrowing/combining “BIRPM” from those three business acronyms above suggests the same closure).

Unfortunately, that early lesson is often lost later in life. Those same babies may have all but given up yearning to get what they want – let alone what they need – by the time they mature, enter the workplace, interact in society, and share common space on this small blue planet. Their frame of reference ‘lens’ somehow seems to get broken.

a shattered view of life

So would it help to replace that ‘lens’

– to improve our own insight – to expand our shared vision ?

“Reframers” is only the latest term used to describe those who are willing to take a new look at what is – and consider what might be better – and how. That focused choice is not new and countless others have made it – on the way to a mindless job – in the throes of a hopeless marriage – on the last day of meeting payroll – on the way to an enemy prison.

Somehow at the ‘last moment’ they decide.

That decision is their first step in a better direction.

“Reframers” decide to “question prior answers”. Repeating what has always been done is only randomly effective, even given the same challenge. Only those with “status” stand to gain from protecting the “status quo”. Everyone else stands to gain from liberating everyone else.

They use the new insight to “answer current questions”. That is always the first step toward a better result. Getting current information about the real need can empower us to avoid a another failed approach – to create rather than focusing blame on ‘yesterday’.

They create “future solutions”. The symptoms of yesterday’s decisions will face us today. But our decisions today will also face us tomorrow with more unwanted symptoms – if we don’t enact meaningful change. Today we must converge insight into the initiatives that can fulfill our desired results, tomorrow.

They share the “benefits”. Some will be the customers – some will be the providers – some will be brokers of information or products – some will defend the rights of all of them to exchange and enjoy all these benefits. They all share a relatively small space on a small planet that is hurtling through space – one that ‘they’ must all sustain if WE are to all survive.

Where does your frame of reference …fit within this frame of relevance?

Like so many misplaced initiatives, this obvious example hallmarks the way our good intentions can create unintended consequences. Whatever our goal. it is usually our desire to somehow stop the nonsense – and replace it with common sense.

Too often we find ourselves engaged in mere “change” that only results in even more non-sense.

Much of what we “hope” for in process improvement and innovation results in another problem – in terms of the process by which the original issue is first analyzed and then addressed.

In our haste to find a solution we are often beguiled to just take action, any action, on any one of many symptoms – only to create even more symptoms, non-sense. The urge to accommodate those coming from other countries can obliterate the unique identity of the country that benevolently intends to assimilate them, non-sense. The urgency to save the shoreline may encourage us to move our activities off-shore – to drill for oil at depths and distances that prevent us from safely managing the process that then fails – and then threaten the very shoreline from which we retreated earlier, non-sense.

The list goes on and on and you have your own opinions about local examples of failing to act within a more expansive (or even global) context. Actions taken within any isolated viewpoint will predictably impact those outside of that limited field of view. Again, it is obvious that our viewpoint must acknowledge the perspective of everyone else that has a viewpoint – all stakeholders – and even those that may only be surprised by the results…. of our implementing some totally unexpected non-sense.

Transparency requires equitable representation

– and accountability requires equitable benefits.

Obviously, we need a methodical approach and a consistent way to find answers. We need a process from which those consistent answers can be equitably (re-)produced.

Obviously we may not have FOUND the right questions…

– or perhaps we just have not USED them…(?)

The challenge is to S.T.O.P. (see through others’ problems) before suggesting alternatives. Obviously there is a key question – or more likely a series of questions – to help us ALL get to the root cause of the real issues – that we ALL desire to solve.

Once we find the “best questions” – we can realistically expect the best answers.

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

WHY

We could predictably digress to a discussion about so-called reform and how politics can divert to the vested interest of those in the ‘pork’ business. But there are more pressing needs in our immediate neighborhood and that of our neighbors (like Haiti of note). What we are addressing touches on both. Neither will be resolved until SOMETHING affords the real CHANGE that we can ALL believe in – not just the few that might be self-served otherwise. And even in the midst of our good intentions and humanitarian efforts, the frailty of our human nature is often showcased as well.

“Everybody knows…SOMETHING” – is more than true, everywhere. While management may desire to know what to change to make things better, line workers are challenged with making things work, anyway. They know the problem intimately and live with it daily. The problem in many cases is also that those who should be listening often turn a deaf ear to that insight. So our first challenge is to open the dialogue and afford everyone equitable representation in that continuous feedback mechanism. Few systems are designed for unfiltered feedback from all those who are impacted and transparent accountability back to all its stakeholders.

“Everybody says… ” – that SOMETHING should be done. There are a growing number of portals and websites and blogs that broadcast our opinions on everything, and to anybody that will listen or watch. The problem is that what we say in one place is not ‘visible’ to what has already been said or what will likely be repeated by someone else, somewhere else, again and again. Not only is the information often repeated, but so is the problem.

Everybody does – SOMETHING, especially at the start. It is easier to rally the troops when self-preservation is at stake. It is easier to ride the emotion of a recent catastrophe than rekindle momentum based on its fading memory. The problem is that our attention is often drawn to a new problem, that too often is just a repeat of an old issue, long since forgotten or buried in the wealth of information that is too often overlooked, or perhaps incomplete or even useless.

So what finally gets done is often less than what is needed. Anyone with a grasp for the obvious is probably aware of this set of issues – and is probably presently involved in some misplaced effort that echoes these problems. And the good news is that the solution to these problems has just been defined within the problem statement itself.

The problem is one of divergence

– that can be resolved by convergence.

We can start by learning SOMETHING from our past. A quick review of the issues described above offers us more than enough insight. The challenge and opportunity is then to collect that knowledge and make it useful, simply and effectively. So how can we all LEARN something, from everybody, everywhere, and every time?

Got a “checklist”…?

Dr. Atul Gawande has recently posed that approach as a means to refocus all the energy that is too often wasted instead. To help with putting that approach to work for us he has even offered a checklist for making a checklist. At its basic concept the checklist serves us in several key ways.

The checklist starts with the affirmation that finding out what ‘someone’ knows is important and will be collected from anyone that cares enough to participate. It continues with a structured process in which it will be collected so that everyone knows which facets of their viewpoints will be evaluated. It culminates in a formalized framework in which their diverse insight can be implemented. What is… broken, what will…be considered, what can…be done?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

How does your business improvement process “stack up” against your competition…?

– is it starting to teeter, tilt, and topple..?

In technology, the “stack” refers to the operating components that ride on top of and then depend on the lower layer for their own functionality. In business that “stack” may be the hierarchical model often depicted in org charts (as if that inversely-stacked allegiance is really honored in actual business relationships). But that said, there is certainly an interdependence and certain components do support and empower the successive ones – as stated here:

Having the right framework, foundation, and functionality can make all the difference. That is what has been studied and proven over the years, regardless of whatever name is given to the current business theology. Designing for change is one of those concepts offered by Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management. Each theory echoes some similar constructs and suggests at least the following practical considerations.

FRAMEWORK

The overall environment in which a company operates can define it – and enhance or limit its ultimate impact. It turns out that it is not just the course of action that is planned and executed but also the ability to change course in route to the intended destination, dynamically. All the work put into a business plan to sail toward success will only be as effective as the response of those who make dynamic adjustments as circumstances demand. That is why published plans are more likely to fail than online tools that provide a ‘live-in’ framework in which to “adjust the sails as the wind changes, and reach the shore, safely”.

FOUNDATION

There are only two things that stop a company in its tracks on the path toward success: People and People. The people that want (pull) whatever it is that you intend to provide are the primary foundation of your business. Until one person wants and buys your offering, there is no business, only a theory about the demand. The people that provide what you offer (push) are the other half of the foundation to your enterprise. That supply chain must be integrated to respond appropriately in terms of timing, quantity, and quality. If there are any broken links, those other people (customers) can and will go elsewhere to meet their needs, needs that change daily!

FUNCTIONALITY

Defining a value proposition that meets the need of THOSE people (customers) and implementing the processes undertaken by YOUR people (suppliers) to meet those needs is done within the framework of your operations. Putting the entire chain together and making sure it doesn’t break is accomplished within the framework of the whole market dynamic. But that is often not what is carried out – or done well – and that integrated ‘dynamic’ (pull-push) often results in broken ‘links’.

The only things that can interfere with successfully creating that value chain are two things: people and people. If THOSE people who want something decide that they want something else (that you don’t or won’t offer) then your offer is immediately unacceptable. The only thing you need to know is what they want – today and tomorrow (not yesterday).

The only thing that keeps YOUR people from providing what is requested is the process by which your people respond to that request – along that supply chain (process), immediately!

So, the most important question about your approach comes down to this –

“Is it immediate?”

Imagine filling your gas tank as you take a cross-county trip by only using the miles-per gallon report from an earlier trip. You would likely find yourself out of gas somewhere along the interstate. Yet that is similar to how we use actuarial evidence of past performance, even if it is done within what-if analysis or other business ‘projections’. Imagine driving in a manner or at a rate of speed based on the average air pressure in your tires last year. A small nail in the road can alter your course or bring you to a complete stop, immediately.

Neither of these analogies is likely true in your business, right? That being said, what are you doing that is NOT based on feedback from the entire chain – IMMEDIATELY?

How long is the delay before you hear from THOSE people – or YOUR people?

Perhaps more importantly, what do you hear from them and how much ‘filtering’ occurs before you hear it? Is whatever you hear filtered by:

timing (out of date or after the impact)

relevance (lacking in broader or related details)

politics (flavored by vested interest or self-preservation)

You can forget what the competition is planning – if you don’t find out what your customers want. You can forget what mid-managers report after ‘sanitizing’ it if you don’t get in direct touch with everyone that touches your supply process. Your success depends on the unbroken and effective linkage of these PEOPLE, and knowing what they know about you and your business.

Very likely you are not immediately aware of what is REALLY happening

with THOSE people – or with YOUR people.

The only way a business can respond and improve and survive is by using a real-time ‘dashboard‘. You need to know how all components are re-ACTING. You need

an integrated view of the entire framework of your market environment

as heard from the voices of Those people and Your people who are the foundation

for adjusting the current functionality that you use to keep the entire chain intact

and you need it dynamically – immediately and continuously.

If your business plan is published, it is also out of date, immediately. If you aren’t hearing from everyone in YOUR organization, be assured that some recruiter or placement firm is. If you aren’t hearing from THOSE people, be assured that your competition already has.

And don’t overlook what has become ‘the last mile’ in that chain. THEY are also already connected and discussing you and your business information around the globe/24/7/365. Even if you choose not to actively participate in ‘social networking’, you are already being (mis?)represented there. Your challenge is to keep an ear to the ground and gain equitable representation and equitable remuneration within this new relationship economy.

If your business results aren’t stacking up to suit you (or to suit your customers), that ‘information’ is already putting you and your company at risk of being “ground up” in the continuous process of competition, improvement, and survival – and immediately.

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.